I'm happy to notice that I am making significant improvement at work. Apart from the regular interviews and correspondence reporting I do for the Somali service, I am also doing interviews and reports for the English to Africa service and I'll be doing the news of the week recap slot for the Nightline Africa programme that airs every Saturday and Sunday. My first news reading went live today. I'm generally really enjoying doing the work that I've been passionate about ever since I can remember and that my talent and experience is being appreciated and put to good use. I'm having a ball of a time. I feel like my hard work over the past 8 years is starting to pay off.
On a more specifically work related note the G20 summit in London, Madonna's attempt to adopt yet another child from Malawi and professor Gandhi meeting with the French defense and foreign ministers to ask for help with strengthening the Somali military have been dominating the news. Now as you know Madonna's attempt has been rejected as the Malawi supreme court required her to be a resident in the country for at least 18 months. Apparently that is the general rule and this was bent the first time she adopted a child, David. Action Aid actually campaigned against her plans to adopt again and are still campaigning as her lawyers get ready to appeal against the court ruling.
I jus can't help but wonder if she genuinely wants to help poor African children or if she is trying to wipe the 'Vogue' image she created from her earlier days as a pop queen and at the same time deviate media attention from her failed marriage. She and along with 'Brangelina' seem to be on a rampage to become the next humanitarian gods of the earth. If they really want to help why don't they fund the hundreds of orphanage camps set up in many African countries and help the children to have a healthy upbringing whilst staying within their own cultures. Instead they're picking these children up from the most random places and just get ready to pose to appear in the front cover of the next editions of People, Hello and OK! magazines.
Moving on I have another rant regarding our 'still in learning mode' defense minister Gandhi. Him along with president Sharif can't help but beg for foreign aid but aren't doing bugger all themselves. They hop from country to country to swap one 5star hotel room for another. It's been a few months since the establishment of this government but Al-Shabab is still fiercely dominating massive chunks of the country and piracy continues to be a thriving business. Innocent people including women and children are dying every day from preventable illnesses, famine, lack of water, droughts and general lawlessness.
It helps when one can say I have done this so far, this is what we're working towards, what can you do to help us along? I suppose a statement like that would be difficult to make as the whole government is based on clan division and keeping warlords quiet rather than collective experience and knowledge to govern a country.
I had an interesting discussion with a friend of mine not too long ago. We know Somalia got introduced to civilisation as the world knows today such as democracy and rule of law fairly recently. The first government was only established after independence in 1960. The Somali language for example was only written in 1973. Before we could really get accustomed to that form of governing the civil war occurred and we've been a dispersed society ever since. So how can we expect this current government whose members have had a brief brush with civilisation but mostly stem from a nomadic background to produce a functioning government based on democracy and rule of law?
Moving on from work I am getting ready for my first holiday since the Middle Ages! Seriously it feels like I haven't been away for a very long time so I'm excited. I'm going to Trinidad with my girl Jen in tow ready to get sunburnt and tear the place down. We're going from 29th of April to around the 3d of May. It won't be as long as I would like but a few days is better than none.
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